BlackRock hires Carlos Takahashi as strategist

Asset manager BlackRock has hired Carlos Takahashi as strategist. Former CEO of the country’s largest asset manager, BB DTVM, Takahashi will now serve as advisor to BlackRock in Brazil.

Takahashi retired from Banco do Brasil in December 2015 and spent around six months away from professional activities in the asset management market to comply with the quarantine period for executives leaving public banks.

In July, he became a partner at TRX, an asset manager operating in the real estate and infrastructure areas. He was invited to coordinate the activities of Brain, an entity linked to the Brazilian Financial and Capital Markets Association (Anbima), whose mission is to promote the Brazilian market across Latin America.

“I was invited by BlackRock to serve as a consultant and said I could dedicate 30% of my time to help devise strategies for them,” said Takahashi. He is already announcing his new role during the Brazilian Congress of Pension Funds, organized by the Brazilian Association of Supplementary Pension Funds (Abrapp) in Florianópolis.

BlackRock already uses the collaboration model in other countries, in which senior executives serve as advisers. However, this is the first time the firm is using this model in Brazil. Takahashi will not be an employee of the firm and will dedicate a part of his time to conceive strategies on products, regulations and market relations. Takahashi is a highly experienced professional and well known in the market who served as Vice Chairman of Anbima and has also worked in partnership with BlackRock while heading the brokerage arm of Banco do Brasil, during the setting up and distribution of the investment fund abroad that the asset manager offers to Brazilian pension funds.

According to Fund Pro Latin America, BlackRock had BRL 379.5 million (USD 115 million) in assets under management raised through its locally domiciled mutual funds. Among them, the best seller is a fund of cross-border funds aimed at Brazilian pension funds and distributed by BB DTVM, with about USD 91 million in assets under management.